Saturday, June 30, 2012

Okay, now I am fully aware that both Katie and I are easily excitable...but this is SO cool! We have been awarded the Versatile Blogger award by Coleen at Totally Terrific in Texas!

This is so fun for us because Katie first found blogs and quickly became obsessed last year. Then she shared them with me... and I spent quite a lot of my time exploring them while my student teacher taught! We were both so inspired by all of YOUR amazing blogs and that is what made us decide to try out blogging for ourselves! You never know how it is going to go, or if people might care about what you have to say. What is fun for us is that we are as excited about new followers now, as we were when we got our first follower! We still text back and forth with tons of exclamation points every time we check and see that we have new followers!
I also called Katie at 10:30 at night because I saw the comment about the award first! When I called her she was trying to wrestle her youngest back to bed, but I told her she had to stop long enough for me to tell her about the award before my phone died! We managed to get a few squeals in before it bit the dust!!

So on to the rules!

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Include a link to their site.
3. Include the award image in your post.
4. Give 7 random facts about yourself
5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.
6. When nominating, include a link to their site.
7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated.

Here are our 7 Random Facts ( In the interest of not rambling (I have a problem with that) we will only do 7 facts, not 7 each :)1. (Lisen) I can whistle about any song! I love to whistle, but get easily annoyed when other people whistle!2. (Katie)When my first born was just six weeks old, I got pregnant with my daughter, Jenna. (I know, it is every new moms' fear. It happened to me. Yes, I know about birth control.) Jenna then decided to make her entrance into this world a month early. SO, from June 7th to August 14th of every year, I have two kids the same age. Right now they are both 6. They should even be in the same grade. But, they aren't. I started Jake in kindergarten since he just made the cut-off *gasp*! I know, I know. Boys aren't as mature, they struggle more when they are the youngest in their class. Fear not, I was very careful with my decision (c'mon, now, I am a teacher, I get it!). I don't regret it at all. He will start second grade this year and is doing awesome!!3. (Lisen) I played basketball in college (aka rode the bench) and totally LOVE how 7 & 8 year olds think I am amazing because I can dribble a figure eight! It's the little things!!!!4. (Katie)Of all the things in the world that I could be afraid of, I am afraid of fish. I have no idea why. It is totally an irrational fear. They totally gross me out though....I won't even eat any type of fish. G.R.O.S.S.5. (Lisen)At the end of the day we always have our kiddos give us either a handshake, high five, or hug as they leave. While pregnant with my twins I loved how the little girls in my class would give me a hug and then pat my (huge) baby belly and say, "bye baby, bye other baby". Totally made me smile every day!6. (Katie). I am sort of a control freak. Especially when it comes to organization. I think I am borderline OCD when it comes to cleaning. This can be a great thing, but it also can drive me nuts. Especially when I am setting up my classroom. I will do a bulletin board over and over again until it is just right. It robs me of so much time. It drives my kids and husband nuts, too. If my house or classroom is messy, it can be hard to function and it stresses me out. Too bad this doesn't carry over into my car....7. (Both of Us) We have to watch where we sit at our in-services because we might possible like to talk a little smidge lot and we don't want to be close enough to the presenter to get the evil eye! (We really do try to listen, and it is interesting...we just have so much to tell each other!!!)

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Yay, yay, yay!!!!! We are now at 100+ followers and you might actually be able to hear us cheering from Kansas!!! So it is time for a GIVEAWAY!!!

We are so excited because we had four other bloggers volunteer to join up on the giveaway with us. Katie and I were texting like mad as we would get email alerts on our phones and would see that people had left comments about joining up! (Texting is much easier then calling for us, because our kiddos seems to have a radar for when we might want to call and talk to another adult. Never fail, they make a beeline for us and need something...loudly...and insistently...and nonstop!)

So last night I put my girls to bed, gathered up my nerve, and checked out rafflecopter. To my surprise, and relief, it was much easier then I had anticipated!

Here are the deets on what you can win!
From Second Grade Smartypants
A 31 teacher bag with classroom supplies

Your choice of 2 items from our TPT store
Our Back to School Survival Kit
Here are some of the things from our TPT store!

You will have until Monday at midnight to enter! *****( It seems that rafflecopter has gotten the best of me!!! I thought I had it figured out, but apparently it has ended the giveaway sooner then I meant to! I'm so sorry!!!)******
(If the winner is outside of the US we will provide extra TPT items from our store instead of the 31 bag and school items, due to shipping!)

Monday, June 25, 2012

We just found another great blog having a giveaway. Hop on over to Will Grade For Coffee to check out her 100 follower giveaway!
We were hooked at the name of the blog! Katie LOVES Coke and I can't function live without my coffee so this name cracked me up!

Funny story about Katie and her love of Coke...hopefully she won't mind me sharing! ( I know she won't!!) Every morning I know when Katie is in her classroom because I hear her pop the top on her can of Coke. Mind you, not her first Coke...she has that one in the car on the way to school! In her defense she NEVER finishes them because she really just likes the coldness of the pop in the can and they go flat before she has time to get more then half of the can finished! :)
Sooooo anywho, on to the really funny part. Katie's son was in first grade this past year and his school had the typical don't do drugs assembly. Afterwards her son's teacher was letting the kids ask questions/comment in the classroom and Katie's son raised his hand and when called on announced to the whole class..."My mom does Coke!" UMMMMMMMM!!!!! Good thing that the teacher knew Katie and her Coke (the drink!!!) habit!! I laughed so hard when she told me that story and am still giggling as I type it now!!

Okay, on to the question. We are loving all the giveaways that everyone has been doing and especially the part where they are getting together with other blogs to offer products! We are getting close to our 100 follower giveaway and would LOVE to do something like this! We figure it is a fun way to get to know other bloggers better and for you to get your blog out there a little more! Sooooo.. if you are interested in joining up with us for our 100 follower giveaway let us know! And if you are coming up on a giveaway and would like to do the same let us know and we would be happy to jump on board with YOU!

On a REALLY happy note, I found a computer!!!! My husband's aunt had an extra and is giving us an AMAZING deal on it! It was put in the mail on Friday from Iowa and should be here soon. As soon as it gets here I will be able to post some freebies of my blends and digraphs posters and some of my favorite spinners that I use during Guided Reading! So be on the lookout!!!

Friday, June 22, 2012

How cool!!!!!! This is our first blog award and it is VERY exciting. I had to find something to occupy my twins with so that I could call Katie and tell her immediately! (Is it bad that what occupied them was letting them lick the patio door from the inside while our sweet lab licked the door from the outside???? Seriously! I have never seen them laugh soooooooo hard!)

Okay, back to the award! Brandi from Success in Second Grade gave us the One Lovely Blog Award! ( By the way, have I mentioned that we might be slightly over the moon about this???) My husband is rolling his eyes at me and wondering why I am letting the girls lick the patio door...which is why I had to call Katie!!!

Here is the fun thing about the award, once you receive it you get to pass it on to others!
Here are the 3 rules to follow:
1. Follow the person that gave you the award.
2. Link back to the person that gave you the award.
3. Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers.

Here are the blogs that we are giving the award to. Please make sure to stop by their blogs!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

We LOVE a good giveaway! Both of us have been lucky to win one giveaway since we started blogstalking and it is so fun!!! We just found another great giveaway. Jump on over to Dirty Hands and Lesson Plans for her 250 (wow!!) followers giveaway!

We are also planning our next giveaway for when we get to 100! Now to figure out rafflecopter! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can! :)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Hello! Happy Monday! We have once again escaped to our local Starbucks. However, this time we spent time blogstalking and chatting instead of working on our to do list! That is actually par for the course. We talk our way through the day during the school year so during the summer we have to make up for lost "talk time" when we actually get together. Side note: We actually have a small little hole in the wall/ceiling between our classrooms and we have been know to throw paper airplanes, shoes, notes, etc. back and forth at each other while our kiddos are in the classroom! It might possibly get a little crazy when we do that, but we sure have fun!! And our kiddos always tell us that they know that we are best friends.
So we have avoided putting pictures of ourselves on here so far and we are finally going to bite the bullet and do it!! We have a friend who is borderline professional at taking pictures (at least we think so) and she took pics at my girls first bday. So here are pics of Katie and her kids and me (Lisen) and my family.

The other thing that I have been up to this summer is rearranging my girls nursery. With twins I have realized that I need WAY more storage then I have. So I found a cruddy old dresser at my neighbors garage sale and bought it for $20 and then painted it to match my nursery. I still need to put on my handles. They are brushed silver and pretty streamlined. I am putting some other pics of the things I made for my nursery before I had the girls because I LOVE them!!!

Okay, one last pic! I, like many teachers, am kind of obsessed with Target! I am still bargain hunting for my classroom even during the summer. My girls have decided that riding in the actual seat is WAY overrated and this is how we now insist on riding! (The things I would have said I never would have allowed before I had kids...so not worth the fight after having kids!!!)

My computer is no longer working unless I hold the power cord in (which makes typing impossible!) so I am doing this on Katie's computer. But I have threatened with my husband with the possibility of sharing his computer unless we buy a new one for me. So we are using our Christmas money and getting one by the end of the week! Yay for me! And yay for everyone else because then we can finally be back with some freebies!!!